Chapter 234 - When Concepts Collide

Nate activated Conceptual Spatial Manipulation, appearing among the ruins of what had once been the rampart of the Calikex’s Holy City. Around him the area was littered with pieces of stone, wood still licked by flames and the fading corpses of both The Eternium and the Calikex. Beyond the ruins of the wall was a crater that sparked and fizzed with the remnants of Concepts. Life flickered, plants growing in bubbling puddles of darkness where they had no right to, and just as often dying within seconds, especially when they intersected with remnants of the Drain Concept. Shards of metal floated in the air where Gravity no longer behaved normally. Finally there were Shadows and of the Concept afflicted crater, they were the most interesting and concerning, as the tendrils of darkness snaked up the forest-side of the impacted earth towards Sub-Commander Korl Farma.

The ‘Boss’ of the Challenge had not come through the explosion unharmed. His black armour pitted and scratched. Blue blood was leaking from one of the eye holes on his helmet. But he was still standing as his glaive drank in the shadows. Conceptual Insight had started buzzing already but Nate didn’t have time to give it thought before the Sub-Commander was attacking.

As the glaive began to slice down, Nate knew that his barrier, as it was, would only survive one strike from the high-level Mythic Classer. As the tip of the weapon pointed at Nate he teleported. The space he’d occupied was cut as though a knife had extended from the glaive's tip, the ground parting as a fist-wide hole was drilled into the dirt. Nate wasted no time in responding as he withdrew four pieces of wood from his spatial zone and activated Conceptual Automated Existence. Earth rumbled, rocks and dirt drawing towards it as it took on the form of a humanoid. Water flowed like a crashing wave, rushing forward. Fire took on the form of a phoenix and Nate blamed himself for that, his thoughts drifting as he created the Fire Construct and influencing his Intent. Finally, a swirling tornado of Wind formed. As one the four Constructs rushed across the field.

Korl Farma must have activated a Skill as Nate felt his Wind Construct be simply snuffed out as it ceased to exist. Where it had been, all gases seemed to vanish and he felt through his sphere of awareness as the surrounding gases rushed into the fill the hole left behind. At the same time the Sub-Commander swept his glaive again, bisecting the Earthen Construct. Unfortunately for the Sub-Commander the Earthen Construct was far from done, simply pulling itself back together. That said, the attack had bought Nate’s opponent time. Time which the Sub-Commander used to snuff out the Fire Construct in a similar way to the Wind Construct. However, the glaive’s attacks seemed almost useless against the Water Construct who flowed forward, being cut multiple times and reforming instantly.

As the Sub-Commander danced away, trying to keep distance from Nate’s Water Construct, Nate went to work on figuring out what was going on. So far he had sensed two Concepts at play. Korl Farma was clearly wielding Shadow and Wind, but that didn’t explain what was happening with his attacks. Every time he swung his glaive or utilised his Skills, he seemed to erase something. Nate’s mind worked through the problem as only someone with a high Intellect Stat could. Shadow, he supposed, could have multiple meanings, similar to how Life could represent Growth or Change or Reproduction, among other interpretations.

Following that thought, he went over the possible interpretations of Shadow. He had seen Shadow be viewed as something tangible, a physical manifestation, in the form of Devouring Shadow. Shadows could be a gateway, he supposed. Teleporting from shadow to shadow was a common enough idea and circumvented the need for a spatial affinity. Then there was the interpretation of shadows as a memory. The shadow of an action. He suspected Kiri’s echo Skill had something of that idea in it. Finally, there was what he suspected Korl Farma was doing. Shadow viewed as an absence. The absence of light, or in this case, the absence of Wind, taken further to create the idea of a Void. 

The realisation made Nate smile, as clearly Reality agreed with him, a wave of Divine Energy flowing into him as he furthered his understanding of how Concepts could interact to give rise to other Concepts. Equally as important, it meant he could defeat Korl Farma. The fact that the Sub-Commander had to stretch his interpretation of Shadow and Wind to achieve the Void was already proof in Nate’s mind of a failed ability to achieve a similar result with more related Concepts. Space for example, was perfectly suited to both creating a Void or filling it. Nate activated Conceptual Runic Mastery as he created a runic array hanging in the air before him. As he began forming the rune he intended he used another part of his mind to activate his remaining two Water-affinity materials, sending forth two more Water Constructs to keep Korl Farma running, as the armour-wearing Void-wielder fled across the battlefield.

The runic array wasn’t complex, focused on a single Space rune at the centre of the geometric shape, surrounded in cascading hexagonal prisms that used his Sigil for Create. The goal was simple. Void removed everything, including space, erasing everything it touched, so Nate would instead create space, forcing it to consume itself. Then all he needed to do was protect his Water Constructs and they would handle the rest. As the runic array formed, mana flowed into it from the Dungeon environment. With Nate’s Embodiment empowering his actions, his effective Magic Power soared to over twelve hundred, and the mana flowing into his rune aspected heavily towards Space, empowering it even further. In response, the space around the Sub-Commander became denser and denser, hints of Gravity leaking through and recognised by Nate’s Conceptual Insight. The warrior’s armour began to fail, the Void around him unable to contest the zone and within seconds three Water Constructs were on him, merging into one as they rushed into his ears, eyes and throat. The glaive, no longer wreathed in shadow, waved futilely in the rolling ball of liquid as Korl Farma thrashed back and forth, clearly trying to use the Void to escape but unable to as the spatial density consumed every attempt to wipe it out. 

A long five minutes later and the Sub-Commander finally stopped thrashing, a burst of processed mana rushed into Nate as his black-armoured foe floated limply in the water. A moment later even that faded away, the corpse and glaive disappearing.

Nate collapsed on his ass, his own mana reserves basically gone, along with over fifty materials for creating Constructs. He was already sucking in mana from some mana gems but it would be a minute before he felt ready to go assist Kiri. Assistance he knew she needed, as the Dungeon was yet to confirm the Challenge had been completed.

*************

Kiri danced tiredly in the middle of three Eternium warriors. She’d lost another Soul Twin already, taking her to four lost in this one Dungeon Challenge. In addition to that insult she was running on the dregs of soul energy she had left to the point where she had given up on using her tethered arms. Instead she was up close and personal, a dagger in each hand, abusing her innate speed and strength to overpower her enemies. A cutting blade of water slipped over her as she ducked underneath before she was forced to dive forward to avoid a burst of flame. Her third opponent looked like they were about to add their own flaming blade to the mix but Kiri tossed one of her Mythic daggers at him, disrupting his sweeping blade and deflecting it upwards. The half a second it bought Kiri was enough for her to extract another blade from her Soul Sanctuary and ram it home into the elfs face before he could produce another blade of water.

Ripping the blade free, she was already moving. Sluggish though she was, she was still faster than these creations of mana. Kiri was pretty convinced of it at this point. They were all weaker than they should have been. The Eternium and the Calikex. They lacked the durability she would have associated with Mythics. They only rewarded a fraction of the processed mana she would have expected, possessed a fraction of the Soul Energy of a living being, and faded into nothing after dying, never leaving behind an Orb. She and Nate had gotten Orbs for the Challenge, but they appeared randomly. It was as though the Dungeon was projecting or creating these simulacrums to create the sense of a battle. And where it failed to recreate the true power of a Mythic class-holder, it made up for it with sheer numbers. Quantity in place of quality.

“Stupid!”

She stabbed the second Eternium warrior three times quickly.

“Bloody!”

She barely dodged a sword, feeling it slice open her shoulder and costing her a sliver of her recouped soul energy.

“Fake!”

She whirled past the questing blade, getting behind her human opponent and slamming both daggers up under a fold in the armour and into the woman's lungs.

“Enemies!”

She came to a sudden stop, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath as blood dripped from her shoulder, the wound already closed but the blood not yet dry. With a tired sigh she straightened up and started jogging towards the sounds of battle down the street. She was on City clean-up, and as much as she hated these fake ass opponents, she hated the idea of failing far more.

*************

Nate felt it as Kiri collapsed next to him, the notification of their success still floating in front of him.

You have completed a Dungeon challenge!
Dungeon: The Shattering of Halureth
Challenge: Take Command! (Defender)
Challenge Bonus: Rewards boosted by the number of Calikex that escaped the Holy City of Nozureth. Bonus is fifty percent.
Challenge Deduction: Rewards reduced due to remaining Calikex combatants being less than ten percent of initial forces. Reduction is fifty percent

Challenge Rewards (Select One):
1. Equipment (Mythic)
2. Affinity Improvement (Mythic)
3. Spell Tome (Mythic)

Please select Reward recipient: Nathaniel Weber or Kiri Beaufoy.

Nate glanced at Kiri, “Do you want it?”

Kiri groaned, apparently unwilling to sit up, instead lying in the dirt in blood-soaked rags and the remnants of her armour. 

“Read them out to me?”

Nate read them out with a smile, pointing out that they weren’t boosted like the previous rewards.

“What do you think?” asked Kiri.

“Spell Tome’s kind of useless. I might get a new Sigil or two out of it but neither of us really uses Spells. Affinity Improvement is useless for me. Not sure about you? As for Equipment, it would definitely save either of us time. It’s your call though if you want to wait for another Dungeon Challenge so you get a boosted reward like I did.”

Kiri grunted, “I’ll take this one. There is an Affinity I want to improve, and if it won’t let me pick, then I could do with some new equipment. Maybe some armour. You hear me Dungeon?! I could use some new armour!”

Nate smiled in amusement as he selected Kiri as the recipient and waited. A moment later he felt like he was sitting next to a puddle of shadow as mana leaked out of Kiri. While the majority of the mana had tasted of darkness, there were hints of the forest and the sound of a trickling stream.

He glanced over at his sister only to see a satisfied smile on her face.

“It let me pick,” she explained. “Seems it needed to expel all the mana in me to improve my shadow affinity.”

“Not Soul?” Nate queried.

“Soul was already pretty high,” answered Kiri as she sat up. “High enough for now anyway. I wanted to expand my Path a bit, you know? Shadow’s always been one of my affinities and I took a Legendary Class in it that would hopefully merge well with the soul aspects of my Path. But a higher affinity for Shadow should improve the way my new Skills work and more importantly make them cheaper to work with. I think so anyway. Hearing myself say it out loud is making me second guess myself. Do you think I made the right decision?”

Nate bumped Kiri’s shoulder with his own, “I think… that perhaps there aren’t many wrong decisions. If it resonates with you and you think it is part of your Path, or you can make it part of your Path, and it’s what you want, then it’s the right decision. Might be more difficult, but that’s never stopped you before.”

Kiri grinned, “Damn right! When did you get so wise?”

“Spending too much time thinking,” Nate replied, glancing at the sky as he watched the battle between Divines play out again. It was almost time for the sequence to start over. Kiri waited with him as the black-scaled dragon dove, unleashing a breath of darkness that erased a cloud and forced three of The Eternium’s Divines to work together to resist the wave of destruction. They erected a multicoloured barrier that cracked under the wave of destruction, wisps of darkness passing through but too dispersed and weakened to threaten the invaders. In response a wave of purple fire in the form of a rampaging bird flew toward the dragon, only to be fractured by a flap of a wing. That was the signal for the play to start over, but this time it didn’t.

The crack of a black wing burst the purple flames apart, but instead of vanishing or dissolving, they rained down upon the land beyond the city. Wherever they touched explosions were heard and dust was launched into the air. The ground beneath them began to shake and Nate’s eyes widened as a plume of lava was launched into the sky.

Kiri was faster to react than he was, already on her feet and dragging him along as they started running. While her body was faster than his, his mind was faster than hers and he was already scanning ahead of them and preparing to start teleporting as he felt a second explosion go off behind them, this one closer to the Holy City. Chancing a glance behind them he saw a wave of earth rising up and flowing towards them like quicksand. He teleported instantly, feeling Kiri follow him a moment later. Continuing to flee he could see when the wave of sand, dirt and mud crashed through the gates of the Holy City in the distance. Another glance let him see that the battle in the skies above was getting closer and closer to the city as well, the Divines of The Eternium forcing the dragon to try and defend itself and the city.

Lances of ice as thick as trees began to rain down upon the city as Nate and Kiri cleared out the other side, running through what must have once been a harbour and heading for the coast. Frick finally reappeared after having been banished in the last few waves of the Dungeon Challenge. 

Sitting on Nate’s shoulder the little Familiar whispered happily as he watched a city spanning kilometres in every direction get destroyed in the space of a few breaths.

“That’s so fucking goblin,” Frick whispered with naked glee.